(LESSON 1) many bioethical issues and other

*Importance of bioethics: problems have also arose

1. Ethics guide us like a map
•philosophers ● Importance of learning bioethics
- they offer us ethical values and and health ethics
principles that enable us to take a cooler 1. Guide us in making responsible moral
view of moral problems reasoning, judgment and action
2. Ethics is about feeling for others 2. Provide awareness and opportunity for
3. Ethical values creates integrity evaluation of the divergent ethical
- high sense if ethics and values makes a perceptions and positions of health care
man trustworthy and representable (good providers on different issues that confront
example or role model) them as they take care of clients
3. Provide basic guidelines for
*advantages of ethical behavior in the professional behavior and practice
workplace 4. Guides us in enriching our own
* builds customer loyalty competence by understanding that the
* retains good employees patient is a person with holistic needs
* creates positive work environment 5. Teach us the importance of genuine
* gets easier to avoid legal problems interdisciplinary thinking and working
* makes profit in the long run
Definition of terms:
*conclusion 1. Ethics
Technological growth and all other - the philosophical and practical science
progress as a civilization fails if we give of morality of human conduct
up our morals and values. - is a natural science
The only thing which separates us from - not a physical science but rather a moral
other animals is our conscience. science
If we obey our morals, our internal peace •Divisions:
is maintained. So our code of ethics a. General ethics
makes us who we are and keeps the - presents truths about human acts
society in harmony. b. Special ethics or applied ethics:
There is no right way to do the wrong • individual ethics
thing. • social ethics

● Why did Bioethics/ Health ethics 2. Bioethics

come into existence? - the division of ethics that relates to
1. Need to improve the health situation human life
2. Because of the scientific advances in - discipline that deals with the ethical
health care and the presence of many implications of biological research
factors that affect health and health care,
- analyzes moral values in the context of - is a matter in dispute that arose from any
biomedical science source or a matter in dispute as a
consequence of something
3. Health ethics
- division of ethics that relates to human 6. Ethical issues
health - disputes or questions related to or
- utilization of: arising from the morality of human
* H: human reasoning and conduct, activity or behavior in general
* E: ethical guidelines that terms
* A: address or
* L: look for answers to important 7. Bioethical issues
questions regarding medical - disputes or questions related to human
* T: treatment and research life and health care that has something to
* H: human health and illness and the do with values and principles
health professions - Examples:
*Health ethics and bioethics * Issues related to the beginning of life
* both are concerned about health and life * Issues related to the end of life
* both regulate human conduct by means * Issues related to health care or
of moral principle in relation to health and advances in medical practice technology
life * Issues related to patient’s bill of rights
* health ethics is a part of bioethics * Culturally-related health care or
transcultural nursing issues
4. Professional ethics
- the division of ethics that relates to 8. Professional ethics-related issue
professional behavior - disputes or questions arising from the
* P: profession owes the practice of one’s profession or arising
* P: public, his/her from one’s professional behavior to
* P: profession and to his/her consulting, researching, teaching, and
* P: patient or client as he/she writing
* P: practice or carry his/her
* P: professional roles and functions (LESSON 2)
*medical professional ethics Definition of terms:
- a very specific branch of professional 1. Morality
ethics that guides the human conduct and - quality of human acts where the
moral obligations of medical and allied acts could either be good or right,
health professionals as they carry out evil or wrong
their health care functions
● What makes good good?
5. Issue - agreement or conformity
● What makes evil, evil?
 - not in agreement or conformity - started with the physician-client
● What makes a reason right? relationship
- conformity with the truth ● Duties and responsibilities of the
physician as embodied in the
* Ethics and Morality oath–the physician should:
- both are inseparable - not prescribe fatal drugs
1. both ethics and morality deal with - rule out abortifacients
human act or human conduct - avoid sexual relations
2. ethics studies about morality - practice confidentiality and
3. morality gives ethics a perspective medical secrecy
of what to study about
4. morality provides ethics with B. Research ethics
quality that determines and - a field of biomedical ethics which
distinguishes right conduct from entailed the use of human beings
wrong conduct as specimens in order to discover
more advanced practices of
* Pointers for a healthcare practitioner treating the individual client
1. be constantly aware of and learn
by heart the essential roles ethics C.Learned Professions
play in the practice of health care - law
2. live the knowledge of ethics in the - education
practice of your profession and - clergy
share it with other healthcare - health care
practitioners ● Characteristics of the learned
3. in case of doubt, seek counsel professions
from persons in authority - self-regulation
4. be brave in adhering to the - a specialized body of
objective norm or standard of knowledge, standards of
morality at all times education and practice, a
fiduciary relationship with
* Development of bioethics those served
Evolutionary phases of bioethics - provision of a particular
studies service to society
A. Medical ethics ● Community problems associated
- Hippocratic oath with professional codes:
- ethical norms in the conduct of - vagueness/ incompleteness as to
healthcare professionals while they duties, levels of performance
treat patients - excessive concern with promotion
- considered as the oldest phase and prestige of the profession
 - vagueness in regard to differently by different authors in different
self-regulation and peer disciplines and by different cultures in
enforcement different times and places
- excessive concern with financial
and business interest Law:
- a person is a human being or a
Human person corporation recognized in law as having
•Objectives: certain rights and obligations
1. Explain the nature of the human person
2. Differentiate the needs and values Philosophy:
based from different person’s point of - a person is a being characterized by
view consciousness, rationality, and a moral
3. Define terms related to conscience sense, and traditionally thought of as
consisting of both a body and a mind or
Person soul
- ‘persona’ in Latin
- ‘prosopon’ in Greek *Person is a tripartite being; body
↓ (material), soul (immaterial), spirit (given
- means “the face” or the mask worn by by divine)
actors on stage *same lang: egg = shell, white, yolk
- the mask represents the different
“persona” Personhood
•”is seen as more than an isolated - the status of being a person
individual body, but as a dynamically - A controversial topic in philosophy and
interior person able to grow deeply in law
oneself through the others with whom - Closely tied to legal and political
he/she communicate, therefore, seeing concepts of citizenship, equality, and
the person in terms of relation to other liberty
persons” — Maritain
•any entity that has the moral right of Needs and values of human persons
self-determination Needs: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
•the kind of being that has the moral right Self-actualization: achieving one’s full
to make its own life without being potential, including creative activities
provoked, interfered by others
•the individual’s uniqueness which cannot Belongingness and love needs: intimate
be interchanged and therefore cannot be relationships, friends
counted Safety needs: security, safety
•a being that has certain capacities or
attributes (character) consulting Physiological needs: food, water,
personhood, which in turn is defined warmth, rest
The human act: it’s characteristics Conscience
•Knowledge Latin words:
- a familiarity with someone or something, cum (with) and scientia (knowledge) thus
which can include facts, information, meaning “with knowledge”
descriptions, or skills acquired through
experience or education Consciousness
- theoretical or practical understanding of - an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment
a subject of the intellect that distinguishes right
- can be implicit (practical skill or from wrong
expertise) or explicit (theoretical - tends to be defined as the feeling that
understanding of a subject) may make a person believe that certain
- can be more or less formal or systematic actions, or failures of actions, are
* education and experience must go inherently wrong
together - philosophers, religious leaders,
* In philosophy, the study of knowledge is psychologists and a variety of others have
called epistemology tried to determine the source of such
* the philosopher Plato defined knowledge emotions, and many arrive at different
as “justified true belief.” answers
* knowledge acquisition involves complex - in religions that worship the Judeo/
cognitive processes: perception, Christian/ Islamic god, conscience is a
communication, association and God-given facility; something that people
reasoning; while knowledge is also said to have with us from birth
be related to the capacity of - in psychological terms, conscience is
acknowledgement in human beings often described as leading to feelings of
•Freedom remorse when a human commits actions
- the state of being free at liberty rather that go against his/her moral values and
than in confinement or under physical to feelings of rectitude or integrity when
restraint actions conform to such norms
- exceptions from external control, * “conscience is a man’s compass” -
interference, regulation, etc. Vincent Van Gogh
- the power to determine action without - your conscience guides you to act the
restraint right way
- political or rational independence
- personal liberty, as opposed to bondage *Conscience as a “Practical Judgment”
or slavery - a practical judgment means an operative,
•Willfulness efficacious, active judgment
- said or done on purpose; deliberate - the root and starting point of our action
- obstinately bent or having one’s own way - we must note that the operation of an
intelligent being is always physically
begun and determined by a judgment
- conscience is entirely separate from - suspends judgment on the lawfulness of
action, and that we can act even against an action and therefore the action should
the dictate of our conscience; conscience be omitted
therefore does not necessarily lead to 5. Scrupulous conscience
action - constantly afraid of committing evil
- conscience is not an operative judgment, - this conscience is a result of a stubborn
and properly speaking cannot be called a character
practical judgment - ex: not wanting to lie even when its a
- as a practical moral judgment, white lie
conscience takes the form “I ought to do 6. Lax conscience
X.” Acquinas points out that when I make - conscience that tends to follow the easy
such a judgment, I should follow it. But way and find excuses for mistakes
acting on my conscience is not enough. - when you see no sin where there actually
We base on moral judgements not only on is sin (ex. Lisa regularly lies to her friends
principles but on evidence, data and about her accomplishments to make
information. A judgment made without herself look better)
data, evidence or information is a foolish Nagtatampisaw sa putikan (sin of
one indeed. If I refuse to look at evidence commission): you know that it is wrong
or information in forming my moral yet you are doing it (ex. stealing, lying,
judgment, I am actually refusing to act adultery)
morally Nadudungisan (sin of omission): a sin that
takes place because of not doing
Surgical conscience something that is right or you know the
- surgical asepsis/ techniques must right thing to do yet you fail to do it(ex. not
always be observed praying, not standing up for what is right)
7. Guilty conscience
Different kinds of conscience - disturbed conscience trying to restore
1. Antecedent (future actions) and good relations with God by means of
Consequent conscience (past actions) sorrow and repentance
2. Right and Erroneous conscience
•Right - judge what is really good as good Determinants of Morality
and evil what is really evil - factors affecting the rightness and
•Erroneous - judges what is bad as good wrongness of an act
and vice versa - a human act is good when it is good in
3. Certain conscience itself, in its motive or purpose and its
- subjective assurance of the lawfulness circumstances
or unlawfulness of certain actions to be - a defect from any of the aspects renders
done or to be admitted an act morally objectionable
4. Doubtful conscience
The act itself
- physical tendency toward a definite
result
- the means to achieve a result
Human act Act of human

Voluntary, from Involuntary

consent of free will

Intrinsically evil
- an act which is evil by its nature
- ex: murder, rape, robbery
Extrinsically evil
- an act which in itself is not evil but is
made evil nonetheless on account of
something else
- we have to stick to our morals
- ex: drinking liquor when done in excess,
therapeutic abortion when it is resorted as
a necessary to safeguard the life of the
mother